Unofficial news and tips about Google

February 12, 2009

Gmail Tests PGP Signature Verification

"A major benefit of public key cryptography is that it provides a method for employing digital signatures. Digital signatures enable the recipient of information to verify the authenticity of the information's origin, and also verify that the information is intact," explains PGP's documentation.

Gmail's code reveals that Google uses a Java applet to perform verification. Here are some excerpts from the code:

The new feature quickly vanished from Sean's account, so it's safe to assume that it's not ready to be publicly released yet. PGP signature verification is the perfect candidate to be the next Gmail Labs experiment.

Update: Expect to see this feature in Gmail Labs. Look for this image: